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Monday, 14 May 2012

Children and chimneys

From the late 18th century children formed a rising proportion of
the population almost two out of five people by the mid-1820s. It was
common for them to work to supplement family incomes. Orphans and
abandoned children came under the care of the Poor Law, but were usually
put into the care of employers who provided for them in return for
their work.

Child labour

Parliamentary concern over the exploitation of child labour in the
19th century is usually associated with factories. In fact the
beginnings of such concern was focused on the 'climbing boys' recruited
by chimney sweeps or apprenticed by parish authorities to climb into and
clean chimneys.
In the 1760s, Jonas Hanway, a wealthy London merchant and
philanthropist, campaigned extensively to improve working conditions for
sweeps' apprentices. Eventually, an Act of 1788 specified a minimum age
of eight years old for apprentices, but this and other regulations were
never enforced.

Finding a solution

In the early 1830s, as Parliament became more preoccupied generally
with the exploitation of child labour, the Chimney Sweeps Act was passed
in 1834 outlawing the apprenticing of any child below the age of ten.
Furthermore, no child was to be actually engaged in cleaning chimneys
under the age of 14.

Chimney Sweeps Act

In 1840, a revised Chimney Sweeps Act raised the minimum age of
apprenticeship to 16. As with earlier legislation, this was largely
ignored due to the absence of any means of enforcement. Children younger
than ten were still being made to climb chimneys.
In 1863 the publication of 'The Water-Babies', a novel by Charles
Kingsley, did much to raise public awareness about the gross
mistreatment of children in this kind of employment through its central
character, Tom, a child chimney sweep. Parliament responded the
following year with a new Chimney Sweepers Regulation Act. This was
ineffective despite its humane purpose.
In 1875, a successful solution was implemented by the Chimney
Sweepers' Act which required sweeps to be licensed and made it the duty
of the police to enforce all previous legislation.